Fathers and Daughters
by eirabach
Summary: Three brief vignettes from the lives of the Doctor and his daughter. Written as a character/relationship study. Post-Journey's End. Alt!Verse. 10/Rose. WARNING: Baby!fic. Sorta.
1. His Own Kind

**A/N: The first in a series of character studies from an epic baby!fic I never completed. Let me know if you'd like to see the rest. Takes place in my one-shot universe where Rose and the cloned Doctor have a grow your own TARDIS.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. This is true of all chapters.  
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**His Own Kind**

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He finds that he can't get enough of watching her laugh – with him, at him, it doesn't seem to matter too much – because when she's laughing it's like the whole universe is beaming; like there's nothing out there that could ever make her stop.

When she's crying he feels the full weight of the universe settle about him; when she's crying it becomes his purpose in life to make her stop.

She doesn't cry often though, doesn't laugh as often as he'd like either truth be told, but she's smiley, and bouncy, and her mother insists that nobody's happy all the time. He can't help but think that the little girl with the wild red curls should be the exception to that rule, and as he watches her spin in circles in some field on some planet with a name even he can't recall he convinces himself that she is.

She's always dancing, always turning her face up to some distant star, pigtails and green ribbons flying behind her as she runs across landscapes that have never seen anything like her before. Sometimes she drags her brother along, always leading the way; sometimes all four of them end up spinning, spinning and falling, and laughing up at skies that twist and change as their eyes catch up with their bodies. She's always the first one to her feet then, holding out small hands, calling them on to new adventures and new sights, things he may have seen a hundred million times but are always fresh when he sees them with her laughter in his ears.

She's done that today, gone off to see some new sight, but this time she's forgotten to wait for them.

He's chasing her through the trees of some forgotten world trying to catch a glimpse of red and green between the falling silver leaves. His single heart thunders in his chest as he tries to catch her; he calls out but there's no reply. She's just out of his reach, and like a rat to the pied piper, her laughter leads him on.

Her laughter's never scared him before.

When he finds her he comes to a sudden and ungainly halt and feels the admonishment on his lips fade to nothing, replaced by a whisper of the impossible truth. She's not laughing now.

She stands in a clearing under a blood red sky, silver leaves cling to her clothes, and the light of twin sun casts two shadows on the ground beneath her feet. She watches him silently from wide, dark eyes as the trees around them crumble to dust.

She's still watching him when he opens his eyes.


	2. Stuff of Legend

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**Stuff of Legend**

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The air is charged, the scowls are fixed, and the stand-off has begun.

He is one side of the control room, sonic screwdriver in hand, smug grin carefully hidden behind the mask of annoyance; she is the other, engine oil smeared across her face, arms folded, jaw thrust forward in a more than passable imitation of her grandmother. From somewhere under the grating a wisp of smoke floats up between them. The lighting is a worrying shade of mauve.

_I know what I'm doing._

The thought is thrust into his mind, her irritation with his interference evident even through their bond, and he has to try very hard to keep hi expression steady. She's just so incongruous, stood knee-deep in something unmentionable, live wires dancing across the floor in front of her, and some ridiculous glittery unicorns prancing on the front of her t-shirt. She's both utterly out of place and totally at home. She's the universe's future saviour and a grumpy little girl. She's fixing the TARDIS and she's doing it completely wrong.

"Of course you do," he says, instead of pointing out the smoke, the mauve alert and the alarmed shouts coming from deeper within the ship as brother and mother both discover that the unmentionable leak is spreading, "you're brilliant."

Her scowl deepens as she waits for the 'but' that she's expecting. The 'but', if he's honest, that is desperate to break free from the tip of his tongue. He holds it in though, offering up an encouraging sort of smile in its place, and her expression lightens slightly.

"I just don't know where it's coming from yet." she tells him, out loud this time, possibly in an attempt to comfort her increasingly alarmed sounding family down the corridor.

"Yet," she adds again for emphasis, "I will though."

"'Course." he dangles the Screwdriver from his fingers and tries not too make it too obvious, "Really, wouldn't expect anything less of you. You know that."

The subtle offering seemed to be working; she looks at the Screwdriver, at him, and then back into the murky, rising unmentionable. She doesn't speak, but holds out her hand. He throws it to her and she catches it without looking him in the eye. It buzzes to life in her hand.

"Mind you this could help, use it like a torch, you know?"

He makes a sound that might be taken as an affirmative.

One megawatt grin later, and she's dived in – Screwdriver in hand – saving the day.

It's not the first time, and it won't be the last.

Every time he's frightened she needs him a little less.


	3. Never Ever

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**Never Ever**

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The light from the fire casts strange shadows on her face, and makes her hair glow like the embers. Curled up on the end of the sofa, knees tucked under chin, a cushion clutched to her shins like a brightly embroidered shield, she looks small and vulnerable and very much like the child she once was, still is, won't be for much longer. It hurts to watch her twisting that old green hair ribbon between her fingers so he pretends not to see, and she watches him from nervous eyes.

The silence is stretched so taunt it's screaming.

The words on the page of his book become blurred and pointless, her eyes, her presence, are all he is aware of; he wonders if she's aware that she's breaking his hearts, he wonders if perhaps his silence is breaking hers. She speaks first, of course, she always has, no matter how chatty the regeneration she has always managed to get the first - and the last - word in every conversation they've ever had, certainly seems that way at least, and he wonders if he has purposefully let her; if those first words had stunned him into life-long deference. He hears the same words now and something catches in his throat.

_My Daddy._

She's not pleading, or laughing, or sobbing, it's a simple statement of fact: he is her daddy, just as she is his little girl, and he really shouldn't be feeling so miserable. All that runs through his head, though, when he finally looks her in the eye are the memories of scraped-knees; hysterical giggle-fits; pigtails dipped in engine oil; quantum physics lessons; spectacular errors of judgement; and he tries to reconcile them with the truth that's shining from her teary eyes, and reflected in the tenuous smile that has replaced her usual beaming grin.

She's not his little girl anymore, and tomorrow she'll be gone.


End file.
